StrongerBible

sungnōmē

συγγνώμη

GreekG4774“concession, permission, ...”

Appears 1 time · tap a cell to see the verses

1Co 7:6
Compound of
sunσύνwith131G4862
ginōskōγινώσκωto know223G1097
Word studyResearch-gradesoong-GNOH-maynoun

What sungnōmē means

a concession: something allowed out of understanding for a person's situation rather than required of them

TranslatabilityPartialCertaintyStrong

The word is built from the ordinary Greek pieces for "with" and "judgment," and that picture explains it: a judgment made from alongside a person rather than over against them. In everyday Greek it named the room a person makes for someone else's limits:

  • lenient judgment for someone who acted without knowing what they were doing
  • excuse for a person who acted under real pressure and had little choice
  • forbearance toward an aging parent whose understanding is failing
  • a writer's request that readers bear with the roughness of his work

None of that is forgiveness as we now use the word, where an offender owns the wrong and is then pardoned. It is allowance, granted because the person could not help it.

Paul uses the word once, in advice to married couples. He has just told husband and wife not to withhold themselves from each other except by mutual agreement, for a set time, in order to give themselves to prayer. Then he adds that he says this by way of allowance and not by way of command. Most scholars take the allowance to cover exactly that temporary abstinence: he permits it, he does not require it. The remark belongs to a line Paul draws all through the chapter between what he passes on with the Lord's authority and what he offers as his own considered judgment (γνώμη).

The word sits close to "forgiveness" without being it. New Testament writers had it available and almost entirely left it alone. When they speak of God forgiving sin they reach instead for release and cancellation (ἄφεσις), and Paul himself prefers the picture of a free gift (χαρίζω). That is not a matter of style. This word makes room for what a person could not help, while the New Testament's forgiveness words deal with real guilt that has to be cancelled.

1Co 7:6
1Co 7:6

What Paul concedes rather than commands at 1 Corinthians 7:6, that is, the referent of "this" (τοῦτο).

  • majorityThe temporary, mutually agreed abstinence of 7:5, which Paul permits but does not require. Verses 7:2 to 7:5 are imperatival, so they cannot be the thing he says he is not commanding, and the "except perhaps" of 7:5 already marks the abstinence as optional.; Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT, at 1 Cor 7:6; C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC, at 1 Cor 7:6
  • minorityMarriage and conjugal relations generally (7:2 to 7:5), tolerated as a remedy for lack of self-control. This older reading was reinforced by the Vulgate's secundum indulgentiam and by Chrysostom's presentation of Paul as accommodating human weakness throughout the chapter.; A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, at 1 Cor 7:6; John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, Homily 19
  • minorityThe wish of 7:7 that all were unmarried as Paul is, so that "this" points forward rather than back. The reading depends on the Byzantine connective that critical editors of the Greek text do not accept.; David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT, at 1 Cor 7:6

What scholars say about sungnōmē

LSJ gives the range "fellow-feeling, forbearance, lenient judgement, allowance," with the idiom συγγνώμην ἔχειν, "judge kindly, excuse, pardon"; Abbott-Smith gives "fellow feeling; hence, concession, allowance" specifically for 1 Corinthians 7:6, and Moulton and Milligan document the noun in the documentary papyri in the sense "pardon." BDAG, Louw and Nida, Spicq and EDNT all sit inside the pardon, concession and indulgence range, so the lexical question at 7:6 is effectively settled in favour of "concession, permission," and the live exegetical question is the referent of τοῦτο. Fee and Barrett tie the concession to the temporary abstinence of 7:5, since 7:2 to 7:5 are imperatival and cannot be what Paul says he is not commanding; Garland's forward reference to 7:7 rests on the Byzantine γάρ that Metzger and modern editors reject. The κατὰ συγγνώμην / οὐ κατ᾿ ἐπιταγήν antithesis belongs to Paul's graded appeal to authority across the chapter (7:10, 7:12, 7:25, 7:40), where he separates the Lord's command from his own γνώμη. On the wider word group, Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics 3.1, 1109b30 to 1111a2; 6.11, 1143a23) attaches συγγνώμη to the involuntary (ἀκούσιον) and links it to equity (ἐπιείκεια); Karin Metzler's monograph traces the stem from its earliest attestations to the fourth century CE and stresses the συγγνώμη and ἀκούσιον pairing. Konstan and Griswold argue from this material that classical antiquity had no concept of forgiveness proper, a thesis Cairns has contested as measuring the ancient evidence against too narrow a modern model. In the Septuagint the noun is rare (Sirach prologue, Sirach 3:13, 2 Maccabees 14:20, with the remaining instances probably in 4 Maccabees) and always denotes human leniency, never the divine forgiveness of sins, for which the Septuagint and the New Testament use ἀφίημι, ἄφεσις and ἱλάσκομαι. Deming reads 1 Corinthians 7 against the Stoic and Cynic debate over whether the sage should marry rather than against body-hating asceticism, which further undercuts the traditional reading of 7:6 as a grudging toleration of marriage.

Where scholars disagree about sungnōmē

Whether συγγνώμη at 1 Corinthians 7:6 denotes an allowance or concession, or a jointly held opinion ("consensus") derived from συν plus γνώμη.

  • majorityAllowance, concession, permission, pardon. This is the sense attested from Herodotus and the tragedians through Koine, and it is the sense the standard lexicons give for this verse.; LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. συγγνώμη; G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. συγγνώμη; BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. συγγνώμη
  • minorityA shared opinion or common judgment, on the ground that the noun decomposes into συν and γνώμη and that Paul uses the simple noun γνώμη for his own opinion later in the chapter (7:25, 7:40). The etymology can explain how a word for shared understanding came to mean sympathetic allowance, but "consensus" is not an attested Koine sense of the noun, and the major commentators on 1 Corinthians do not adopt it here.

Whether the συγγνώμη word group in ancient Greek ever denotes forgiveness in the modern sense, or only excuse extended for what was judged involuntary.

  • contestedIt denotes excusing or pardoning an act taken to be involuntary or done in ignorance, so the modern concept of forgiveness, which requires the wrongdoer to acknowledge guilt and change, was not yet in play.; David Konstan, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Charles L. Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
  • contestedThe ancient evidence is broader than that reconstruction allows: the modern model it is measured against is itself drawn too narrowly, and Aristotle applies συγγνώμη to feelings as well as to actions, so an attitude close to forgiveness is within its reach.; Douglas Cairns, review of David Konstan, Before Forgiveness, Ancient History Bulletin Reviews 2011.32
In-depth research

This is a research paper, so it may be hard to read without scholarly background. It is useful if you want to dig even deeper into this word.

Sources

  • LSJ, A Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. συγγνώμηlexicon
  • BDAG, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, s.v. συγγνώμηlexicon
  • G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, s.v. συγγνώμηlexicon
  • J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, s.v. συγγνώμηlexicon
  • Ceslas Spicq, Theological Lexicon of the New Testamentlexicon
  • Horst Balz and Gerhard Schneider, eds., Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, s.v. συγγνώμηtheological-dictionary
  • Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans)commentary
  • C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC (London: Black)commentary
  • Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans)commentary
  • David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic)commentary
  • Karin Metzler, Der griechische Begriff des Verzeihens: Untersucht am Wortstamm syngnome von den ersten Belegen bis zum vierten Jahrhundert n. Chr., WUNT 2/44 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991)monograph
  • David Konstan, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)monograph
  • Charles L. Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)monograph
  • Douglas Cairns, review of David Konstan, Before Forgiveness, Ancient History Bulletin Reviews 2011.32article
  • Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, SNTS Monograph Series 83monograph
  • Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)monograph
  • Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.1 and 6.11ancient source
  • John Chrysostom, Homilies on 1 Corinthians, Homily 19ancient source

AI-generated word study · claude-opus-4-8

All attested forms of συγγνώμη

accusative f s

συγγνώμην

1Co 7:6